Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114107One could take an ambitious route of creating a multiverse setting in which every imaginable model of the planes could coexist.

EDIT: IIRC 5e DMG mentions a planar model "myriad" in which there isn't a defined structure that applies to the entire multiverse.

Yeah, I haven't read the 5e DMG, but there's been various changes to the cosmology of the planes used throughout D&D's history (some more significant than others). So it stands to reason that they'd propose a model that tries to integrate all of them as a possibility. What I said probably applies more from a 2e POV in that regard. The trick then would be coming up with a rationale that explains a myriad planar models working together while keeping things consistent.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/269791/Troika-Numinous-Edition

Surely there's always room for a good plane-hopping RPG?

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114125Yeah, I haven't read the 5e DMG, but there's been various changes to the cosmology of the planes used throughout D&D's history (some more significant than others). So it stands to reason that they'd propose a model that tries to integrate all of them as a possibility. What I said probably applies more from a 2e POV in that regard. The trick then would be coming up with a rationale that explains a myriad planar models working together while keeping things consistent.

Multiverse? I'm pretty sure the explanation is in the name. Each world has a different set of planes.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: what do people like about the planes in the first place? I'm not talking philosophical factions, I mean the planes themselves. Why would players want to vacation there?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114241Multiverse? I'm pretty sure the explanation is in the name. Each world has a different set of planes.

Perhaps a better question to ask is: what do people like about the planes in the first place? I'm not talking philosophical factions, I mean the planes themselves. Why would players want to vacation there?

The word "Multiverse" on its own doesn't explain anything. It's just a concept, and a hypothetical and contentious one at that. There are dozens of theories (i.e. actual explanations) about how they would operate. Fantasy could have many more. How do all these places connect? What is the underlying cosmology that encompasses them? What is it's structure?

As for why people would want to go to the planes that would probably require polling. Though, we could speculate about people enjoying the weird factor or the thrill of traveling across multiple worlds, etc. Another way to answer that would be to answer why would people want to play this particular setting--i.e. what are its hooks? What is it about or makes it interesting? Its selling point, etc. Then see what people think about that particular idea.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114241Perhaps a better question to ask is: what do people like about the planes in the first place? I'm not talking philosophical factions, I mean the planes themselves. Why would players want to vacation there?

For the same reasons people want to travel to any other place thats not home.

Plus the extra normal DnD reason - to find the Macguffin.

Quote from: VacuumJockey;1114218https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/269791/Troika-Numinous-Edition

Surely there's always room for a good plane-hopping RPG?

Troika looks awesome. I'm itching to get it.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114250The word "Multiverse" on its own doesn't explain anything. It's just a concept, and a hypothetical and contentious one at that. There are dozens of theories (i.e. actual explanations) about how they would operate. Fantasy could have many more. How do all these places connect? What is the underlying cosmology that encompasses them? What is it's structure?

That's my point. There might not be an underlying cosmology encompassing them all, just transitional/transitory planes linking different cosmologies.

There have been a ton of 3pp exploring new concepts of the planes. Legends & Lairs: Portals & Planes, Beyond Countless Doorways, Classic Play: The Book of the Planes, A DM's Directory of Demiplanes, Dark Roads & Golden Hells, Bastion Press' Fairies, Along the Twisting Way: The Faerie Ring, The Slayer's Guide to Elementals, and more.

For example, the Blood & Treasure "Land of Nod" campaign setting's cosmology is modeled after Aristotle's celestial spheres and Dante's Inferno. The Eberron cosmology has a planet orbited by planes like moons with various effects during conjunctions. The Forgotten Realms cosmology is a crazy flowchart. Glorantha has a cosmology based on the ancient cosmology of real religions with a flat earth, an underworld, a heavenly dome. Warhammer Fantasy has its "mortal realms". The Alluria Campaign Setting Guide is written explicitly as a multiverse with multiple worlds connected by transitional planes, with its premise being characters from multiple worlds being in the same party.

Essentially, planes may generally be placed into one of several recurring categories and the cosmology just explains how they relate to one another. The categories include material/prime planes (planets, outer space, celestial spheres, etc), elemental/energy planes (air, earth, fire, water, positive, negative, elemental chaos, etc), transitory planes (shadowfell, feywild, astral, ethereal, luminiferous aether, world tree, etc), outer planes (upper planes, lower planes, planes of chaos, planes of order, neutrality, etc). The cosmology models include wheel, omniverse, orrery, ocean, rose, sephirot, etc. There's no reason why transitory planes can't connect different cosmologies.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114250As for why people would want to go to the planes that would probably require polling. Though, we could speculate about people enjoying the weird factor or the thrill of traveling across multiple worlds, etc. Another way to answer that would be to answer why would people want to play this particular setting--i.e. what are its hooks? What is it about or makes it interesting? Its selling point, etc. Then see what people think about that particular idea.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114254For the same reasons people want to travel to any other place thats not home.

Plus the extra normal DnD reason - to find the Macguffin.

Yes. But why use the other planes instead of the prime material planets and space travel? Most of the other planes are really boring or only allowed for high level characters. To do a planehopping setting, you need to both make the planes interesting, distinct from the material plane, and support adventuring from level 1.

For example, Dark Dungeons redesigns the elemental planes so that they have actual geography reflecting the material plane, just composed of different flavors of their element. It uses a celestial sphere encompassing the solar system, and each elemental plane has its own mirror of the sphere.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114266Yes. But why use the other planes instead of the prime material planets and space travel? Most of the other planes are really boring or only allowed for high level characters. To do a planehopping setting, you need to both make the planes interesting, distinct from the material plane, and support adventuring from level 1.

For example, Dark Dungeons redesigns the elemental planes so that they have actual geography reflecting the material plane, just composed of different flavors of their element. It uses a celestial sphere encompassing the solar system, and each elemental plane has its own mirror of the sphere.

Instead of me trying to read your mind, how about giving me an example of what plane you find the most boring and lets see if we can brain storm a reason why the PCs would want to go there?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114266That's my point. There might not be an underlying cosmology encompassing them all, just transitional/transitory planes linking different cosmologies.

There have been a ton of 3pp exploring new concepts of the planes. Legends & Lairs: Portals & Planes, Beyond Countless Doorways, Classic Play: The Book of the Planes, A DM's Directory of Demiplanes, Dark Roads & Golden Hells, Bastion Press' Fairies, Along the Twisting Way: The Faerie Ring, The Slayer's Guide to Elementals, and more.

For example, the Blood & Treasure "Land of Nod" campaign setting's cosmology is modeled after Aristotle's celestial spheres and Dante's Inferno. The Eberron cosmology has a planet orbited by planes like moons with various effects during conjunctions. The Forgotten Realms cosmology is a crazy flowchart. Glorantha has a cosmology based on the ancient cosmology of real religions with a flat earth, an underworld, a heavenly dome. Warhammer Fantasy has its "mortal realms". The Alluria Campaign Setting Guide is written explicitly as a multiverse with multiple worlds connected by transitional planes, with its premise being characters from multiple worlds being in the same party.

Essentially, planes may generally be placed into one of several recurring categories and the cosmology just explains how they relate to one another. The categories include material/prime planes (planets, outer space, celestial spheres, etc), elemental/energy planes (air, earth, fire, water, positive, negative, elemental chaos, etc), transitory planes (shadowfell, feywild, astral, ethereal, luminiferous aether, world tree, etc), outer planes (upper planes, lower planes, planes of chaos, planes of order, neutrality, etc). The cosmology models include wheel, omniverse, orrery, ocean, rose, sephirot, etc. There's no reason why transitory planes can't connect different cosmologies.

IDK, a lot that seems to support my point that multiverses need some type of underlying cosmology or structure to explain how they operate, cuz everyone of those examples you list has one and you even go into some of the details. Even if you limit it to just a transitional plane, you still have to explain what that plane is and what it's like. If there are any special dangers in it, any special methods to get there or leave, etc.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114266Yes. But why use the other planes instead of the prime material planets and space travel? Most of the other planes are really boring or only allowed for high level characters. To do a planehopping setting, you need to both make the planes interesting, distinct from the material plane, and support adventuring from level 1.

For example, Dark Dungeons redesigns the elemental planes so that they have actual geography reflecting the material plane, just composed of different flavors of their element. It uses a celestial sphere encompassing the solar system, and each elemental plane has its own mirror of the sphere.

Cuz the material plane doesn't have any of the wacky, surrealistic stuff that may exist in the planes and generally neither does space travel, which isn't even a feature of most fantasy worlds. To a significant extent the reason people are attracted to plane-hopping settings is precisely because "boring" is a term that generally applies more to the mundane and ordinary material plane than other planes of existence.

As for planar adventures typically being more appropriate for high level characters, in a way I suppose that's true--specially in D&D (that might not be the case with other systems). But there ways around that:

• The setting could provide a wealth of low level planar encounters and/or guidelines for making planar versions of animals and other simple encounters.
• Weak magical weapons could be more commonplace (so you can damage enemies requiring magic weapons).
• Characters could start at higher levels to improve survivability.
• Etc.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114307Instead of me trying to read your mind, how about giving me an example of what plane you find the most boring and lets see if we can brain storm a reason why the PCs would want to go there?

I thought I linked an article (http://blogofholding.com/?p=3908) that explains the problems with the planes, but if you need examples then sure.

Most planes suffer from being some combination of boring and redundant.

The ethereal plane is an infinite boring expanse of mist. Any adventure on the ethereal plane may be moved to any mist-shrouded moor on the material plane and would become more interesting as a result.

The astral plane is an infinite boring expanse of silver sky. It's identical to the plane of air, or even the material plane sky.

The plane of air is identical to the material plane sky. You can set air adventures in the material plane sky.

The plane of earth is identical to the underdark. You can set earth adventures in the material plane underdark.

The plane of fire is an endless field of fire. You can set fire adventures in any desert or volcanic wasteland on the material plane.

The plane of water is identical to the ocean. You can set water adventures in the material plane ocean.

Or, you know, compare D&D's infinite expanses of homogeneous pointlessness with elemental planes levels in video games. Telara, Warcraft and EverQuest have interesting planes IIRC.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114311IDK, a lot that seems to support my point that multiverses need some type of underlying cosmology or structure to explain how they operate, cuz everyone of those examples you list has one and you even go into some of the details. Even if you limit it to just a transitional plane, you still have to explain what that plane is and what it's like. If there are any special dangers in it, any special methods to get there or leave, etc.

You're putting too much thought into this. Go into the shadow plane, walk far enough, step out into another material plane's cosmology. It's that simple.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114311Cuz the material plane doesn't have any of the wacky, surrealistic stuff that may exist in the planes and generally neither does space travel, which isn't even a feature of most fantasy worlds. To a significant extent the reason people are attracted to plane-hopping settings is precisely because "boring" is a term that generally applies more to the mundane and ordinary material plane than other planes of existence.

Most D&D-based fantasy settings implicitly assume that real world space physics are in the background, accessible through portals and spaceships if available. Settings that don't follow real world physics to a T have to be specifically noted, like Glorantha.

If the material plane is boring that's because writers are too lazy to do anything interesting with it. I've seen countless children's cartoons that make the material plane vastly more interesting than D&D infinite expanses of a single substance. None of the D&D canon has ever made the planes seem remotely interesting to imagine myself visiting, and that's the fault of the writers for lacking any imagination.

I'm not convinced that there's a popular perception of the material plane as boring and the other planes as not. Besides the original Planescape, there's a huge dearth of material about the other planes. I can't recall any adventure paths which took place mostly on another plane. There just doesn't seem to be enough interest, sadly.

I don't see the "surreal" elements, sorry. As I mentioned above, most of the planes are just boring expanses of a single homogeneous substance or empty space. The elemental planes are just slices of the material plane, but far more boring. If I want surreal, then I have to imagine it myself.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114311The setting could provide a wealth of low level planar encounters and/or guidelines for making planar versions of animals and other simple encounters.

I've been saying this since forever. Gating off the planes behind high level is arbitrary and there's no reason why the planes can't be playable from level 1 if you put the effort into design.

However, in some ways that runs counter to your defense of the planes as being surreal. If we're serious about giving the planes geography, ecology, and society from level one, then that's going to make it more mundane. The plane of fire may have land of burning coals, rivers of lava, and a sky that is literally on fire all the time, but it still has recognizable geography. It's going to have forests of burning bushes and fire birds, villages of fire folk farmers farming their fire wheat, cities of fire people going about their daily jobs... it basically becomes the material plane except with everything on fire. Which is why I asked above why it can't be set in a volcanic wasteland on the material plane like Adventure Time's fire kingdom.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114311Weak magical weapons could be more commonplace (so you can damage enemies requiring magic weapons).

Why do we need enemies to be immune to non-magic weapons in the first place? In addition to being arbitrary, that is so commonplace in D&D that it feels just as mundane and boring as not being immune to non-magic weapons. The writers could at least try to be creative and use more specific qualifiers than "magic."

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114311Characters could start at higher levels to improve survivability.

This isn't exactly a solution. You're just skipping the boring early levels and going right to the interesting levels where planar adventures aren't gated off. But sure, whatever works, I guess?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114443I thought I linked an article (http://blogofholding.com/?p=3908) that explains the problems with the planes, but if you need examples then sure.

I dont need a laundry list of examples just your best one or, in this case, the first one.

QuoteMost planes suffer from being some combination of boring and redundant.

The ethereal plane is an infinite boring expanse of mist. Any adventure on the ethereal plane may be moved to any mist-shrouded moor on the material plane and would become more interesting as a result.

The Ethereal plane certainly is boring so how could we differentiate it from a mist-shrouded moor and provide reasons for Players to go there.

I always like the spell Leomunds Secret Chest.  One day after summoning the Chest the party finds it empty!  The only way to find out what happened to their precious loot is to travel to the Ethereal Plane.

Ghosts are the most "famous" Ethereal monster.  The Party has been tasked with traveling to the Ethereal plane to put a Ghost to rest.

The BBEG lives in a fortress full of Gaurds and Creatures and hardened against standard magical spells.  Maybe the party can find a way in through the Ethereal Plane?

So three adventure hooks to provide reasons for the party to want to go to the Ethereal Plane.

Quote from: Shasarak;1114453I dont need a laundry list of examples just your best one or, in this case, the first one.



The Ethereal plane certainly is boring so how could we differentiate it from a mist-shrouded moor and provide reasons for Players to go there.

I always like the spell Leomunds Secret Chest.  One day after summoning the Chest the party finds it empty!  The only way to find out what happened to their precious loot is to travel to the Ethereal Plane.

Ghosts are the most "famous" Ethereal monster.  The Party has been tasked with traveling to the Ethereal plane to put a Ghost to rest.

The BBEG lives in a fortress full of Gaurds and Creatures and hardened against standard magical spells.  Maybe the party can find a way in through the Ethereal Plane?

So three adventure hooks to provide reasons for the party to want to go to the Ethereal Plane.

That doesn't make the ethereal plane any less boring. It's just a shortcut for the material plane. You can get rid of it entirely, replacing it with a simpler ethereal condition (invisible, incorporeal, flying), and lose nothing of value. Same applies to all the planes. They're boring and worthless. Nothing more than the detritus of an autist's obnoxious OCD.

Making the planes interesting requires actual work. The first question you need to ask yourself is: if I was writing a video game, tv show, novel, whatever set entirely on plane X, how would I write it as remotely interesting, not a complete snorefest, and justified as being on another plane rather than an exotic region of the material plane?

This ain't rocket science.

Here's an example map of the plane of fire: https://www.reddit.com/r/inkarnate/comments/bfels5/plane_of_fire/

And a setting book: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199348/The-Travelers-Guide-to-the-Elemental-Plane-of-Fire

You can play as fire elementals on the plane of fire from level one. It is surprisingly easy.

EDIT: Pandius has this covered: http://www.pandius.com/planejam.html#element

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114443*snipped for brevity*

You're just being pointlessly argumentative and nitpicky at this point. I'm saying I want apples (the planes) and you're telling me I should have oranges instead (the material plane). Oranges have more vitamin C and they're good for me, so WTF do I want apples for?

Maybe I want apple pie? But no, I should try orange pie instead. Don't you know you can make pies with oranges too?

And WTF do you need the recipe for the pie crust for (the multiverse cosmology)? You just go to the store and buy one ready made! You're over thinking this too much!

Except maybe this could be about making my own original, professionally baked pie (publishable game setting) and just buying some random store crust isn't good enough. And pie aficionados (people who actually like plane-hopping adventures and don't readily dismiss them as 'boring') aren't gonna go for some stale, generic, tasteless store bought crust. They want the real savory stuff made from the right ingredients to fit this particular style of pie (actual details about the structure of the planes and the multiverse that add flavor to the setting rather than "you just go into some transitional plane and eventually get to another material plane--cuz fuck the Outer Planes or the Demi Plane of Dread, the material plane is where it's at!").

Moving away from pie and fruit analogies and addressing some specific points:

FIRST: You're nitpicking transitional planes and elemental planes of raw energy and material, and extrapolating that because those specific types of planes tend to be mostly empty, may have material plane analogs in some cases or you don't know what to do with them that therefore the entirety of the planes must be boring, and people shouldn't go there. Ever.

No mention of the Outer Planes or Demi Planes, of course, cuz those ain't just some inter dimensional highway that takes you to an actual plane, or buckets of raw material and energy used to build reality. But then those places have material plane analogs too, so you'll probably just tell me to turn them into material plane worlds instead.

Why not just make Asgard a material plane cuz this is fantasy anyways? Why does the land of the gods have to be some distant heavenly realm most mortals can only dream about when fantasy worlds have unicorns and dragons in them? Why should worlds in the material plane retain some semblance of the real world so they can be grounded in reality despite having subtle magical underpinnings when you can crank the weird factor up to eleven and have the flying islands and endless spires right at home without having to cross some transitional plane to get them? Some select few fantasy worlds do that so why build a world where you can keep the otherworldly and the mundane separate, so you can keep a sense of wonder, when you can make the weird and the surreal commonplace and completely miss the point of having planar adventures?

And all this sarc isn't even getting into how the transitional and elemental planes could still be made interesting by having the occasional weird stuff floating in them that characters could explore or face otherworldly dangers, find lost travelers or a host of other things. But characters aren't supposed to constantly dwell in transitional planes anyways, which is why they're called TRANSITIONAL (i.e. planes in between actual places).

SECOND:

QuoteIf the material plane is boring that's because writers are too lazy to do anything interesting with it.

Interesting how the same thing could be said about the planes or otherworldly realms like fairylands and things like that. And children's tales are also full of them.

THIRD:

QuoteBesides the original Planescape, there's a huge dearth of material about the other planes. *snip* There just doesn't seem to be enough interest, sadly.

TSR was notorious for not even not listening to player feedback and publishing regardless of actual interest, which is why they went bankrupt and WOTC bought them. They had a wealth of setting material and novels not enough people actually wanted, cuz they went by their own arbitrary release schemes.

This is not to say that therefore the interest was there, but rather that TSR's publishing history can't be taken for anything but the publishers' whims at the time.

FOURTH:

QuoteI don't see the "surreal" elements, sorry.

You refuse to see them cuz you're too busy looking in places where they're not (or they could be, but you "are too lazy to do anything interesting with [them]") or dismissing them cuz why not just make wacky landscapes in the material plane instead?

FIFTH/Rest of your post:
You complain that making the planes suitable for low level characters somehow goes against things being surreal (cuz apparently weird wacky stuff must be level dependent). But then at the end also complained about increasing the starting level, which just highlights how pointlessly argumentative you're being. Integrating lower level characters is not good enough. Increasing character levels just for planar campaigns is also not good enough. Either way you're going to complain regardless.

And monsters being immune to non-magical weapons is a D&D trope. I only brought it up cuz this seemed to be veering towards D&D related questions, like "what about low level characters?" Monsters could just be affected by all weapons normally for all I care. But if we were to build this around D&D rules that might be a factor.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1114492That doesn't make the ethereal plane any less boring. It's just a shortcut for the material plane. You can get rid of it entirely, replacing it with a simpler ethereal condition (invisible, incorporeal, flying), and lose nothing of value. Same applies to all the planes. They're boring and worthless. Nothing more than the detritus of an autist's obnoxious OCD.

If you use my example then they are not boring.  In one we have an exciting investigation scenario, in another an exciting (and uniquely DnD) Ghost story and the third an exciting and dangerous infiltration scenario which are all uniquely focused on the Ethereal Plane.  You specifically can not substitute a mist shrouded moor for any of those scenarios.  And while OCD is always welcome is not required.

QuoteMaking the planes interesting requires actual work. The first question you need to ask yourself is: if I was writing a video game, tv show, novel, whatever set entirely on plane X, how would I write it as remotely interesting, not a complete snorefest, and justified as being on another plane rather than an exotic region of the material plane?

This ain't rocket science.

Exactly.  It aint rocket surgery because TV has already invented the travel montage to show how you can go from Place A to Place 2 in way to advance the story without having to waste a lot of time.  You can apply any of these techniques to travel on the Prime as well as the Planes.

QuoteHere's an example map of the plane of fire: https://www.reddit.com/r/inkarnate/comments/bfels5/plane_of_fire/

And a setting book: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199348/The-Travelers-Guide-to-the-Elemental-Plane-of-Fire

You can play as fire elementals on the plane of fire from level one. It is surprisingly easy.

EDIT: Pandius has this covered: http://www.pandius.com/planejam.html#element

I am glad that someone has done some work to make the Plane of Fire interesting for you.  I guess for extra trope inversion you could play as Elementals traveling to the Prime and trying to survive in the hostile environment where liquid water falls from the sky.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1114500THIRD:

TSR was notorious for not even not listening to player feedback and publishing regardless of actual interest, which is why they went bankrupt and WOTC bought them. They had a wealth of setting material and novels not enough people actually wanted, cuz they went by their own arbitrary release schemes.

This is not to say that therefore the interest was there, but rather that TSR's publishing history can't be taken for anything but the publishers' whims at the time.

TSRs publishing history is even more interesting then that.

It is, however, unfair to say that TSR never listened to Player feedback.  More accurately you could say that the Designers never saw the sales data on the products that they were making and eventually Dragon Dice took down the whole company.